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we recognize that a change should be made, we often realize that we cannot pull it off without someone else’s permission and/or collaboration. Thinking about bringing another party on board tends to make us somewhat apprehensive. Not only because of the time and effort it is going to take, but mostly because we can’t be sure that these efforts will pay off; getting buy-in is not a trivial task. So, we prepare our arguments (or don’t), take a deep breath, and tell the other party all about our fantastic idea. Sometimes it works and they get excited, and sometimes it doesn’t and they leave less than enthused. Resistance comes in many forms: We might encounter a flat-out NO, or get caught in the cycle of objection and reassurance like those folks at the airport. Even a repetitive “let me think about it” can be a type of resistance, and there are many more. The result is still the same: We do not yet have the approval or collaboration we need in order to move on.

Our natural reaction on such occasions is to get all worked up and blame the other party for being indifferent or stubborn or even stupid (Goldratt, 2009). After all, they are the ones who failed (miserably, we might like to tell ourselves) to see the need for our change. The literature on the subject also focuses on the other parties’ reasons for resisting change, stating causes such as personality traits (e.g., intolerance for ambiguity, need for control), inertia, promoting or protecting one’s self-interest, and more. If we pause for a minute to think about what these causes mean, we can see that the literature has a lot in common with our natural reaction—both imply that the person who resists the change is the “bad guy” in the situation. TOC takes a very different stand in that matter. What TOC suggests is that instead of blaming the other party, the person proposing the change should be accountable for thoroughly planning and presenting the change.

Copyright © 2010 by Efrat Goldratt-Ashlag.

First of all, let us assume that we are talking about a win-win change, one that benefits all parties involved. Too often we come up with the most creative justifications for demanding that others give up their needs so that we can get ours met. We are pushing for a win-lose change. If we expect to “win” at the expense of the other side, we are practically asking for resistance—and shouldn’t be surprised when we get it. Win-lose solutions are hard to sell, and even if we have the power to enforce them, we cannot expect our partners to collaborate happily. In this chapter, we focus only on win-win changes.

At first glance, it seems that win-win changes should be easy to sell. After all, if everyone wins, why would anyone object? Win-win changes should practically sell themselves. In reality, however, this turns out to be false. People do object to win-win solutions, and often for very good reasons. For instance, they may not be clear on how they win, exactly (or, shall we say, we haven’t outlined their benefits clearly enough), they may have concerns that we might have overlooked, they might believe this change will not “stick” and want to preserve their energy for more worthwhile efforts (as excited as we are about this change, have we really thought of how to integrate it fully?), and so on. Today’s world presents people with abundant opportunities to make changes in all areas of life. In order to make sure that they look after their best interest and use their resources for efforts that will pay off, it stands to reason that people will approach change with various degrees of caution. If we would like to implement a change that requires their collaboration, then it is up to us to buy them in.

Some of us are excellent salespeople when it comes to getting people on board, and some of us are less “talented” in that area. We have all initiated and implemented successful changes in the past, but we have probably failed too—we have tried to get others to collaborate and we have gotten stuck. The question is, when we get stuck, is there something we can do about it? Is there